Heart of the City

When a bi-racial student asked Dr. Power why his Jewish grandmother (a Holocaust survivor) received reparations but his black grandmother (a descendant of enslaved people) did not, the professor realized she did not have a satisfactory answer. She has spent the intervening two decades studying reparations cases around the globe to better understand who receives and who doesn't. And why or why not.

In Part 1 of a two-part series, we welcome Dr. Kathy Powers to HOC Live. Dr. Powers helps frame the topic of reparations in a global context. With case studies from Haiti to Bosnia, she will help us to understand how reparations have been administered historically and what frameworks may be transferrable to the American case.

Trailer for the interview with Joy Hollingsworth of the The Hollingsworth Company.

In October 2013, Raft Hollingsworth called a family meeting at his parents' home. Not crazy. They did this from time to time. But this time Raft (the baby of the family) had a Power Point deck. This was serious. He had a business proposition for them. With recreational cannabis newly legal in the state of Washington, he saw an opportunity for him and his family to get in on the ground floor. Mom was impressed by the presentation. So was his dad. Dad ended up investing his entire retirement fund to bankroll the startup. Today they have a 30,000 square foot farm, outfitted with eight greenhouses. Joy and Raft run day to day operations of The Hollingsworth Company (THC) [<-- See what they did there?], and count their ability to work with family as the most valuable asset in their growing company.

Don Baker is a Grammy nominated music producer turned CPA, turned real estate investor and entrepreneur. His portfolio now encompasses more than 500 units across three markets.

Over the course of his evolution out of the music business and into entrepreneurship, he noticed that there were certain key principles at work in the lives of the everyday millionaires he was serving in his CPA practice. He quickly began to implement those principles in his own life. Don tells a story of being able to spin up $1M of business credit for himself... in one week once he cracked the code on leverage. 🤯

He will share that story (and many others) and give the blueprint for how you and your family can begin to implement these strategies in your life.

Preview of the topics discussed with Rafiq Kalam Id-Din, Managing Partner, Ember Charter School

"The most profound economic impact of COVID may ultimately be the way it changes K-12 education."

Mr. Kalam Id-Din is a scholar turned successful attorney turned education entrepreneur. He now runs the Ember charter school in Brooklyn that serves five hundred students and their families. The sensitive nature of his "product" and the structure of how eduction funding works in the US makes for unique management challenges.

To confront those challenges, Rafiq borrowed from the professional service model he saw while working at his law firm in Hong Kong and incorporated that organizational structure into the creation of his school.

Rafiq discusses his unique model and also sheds light on some of the impact COVID is having on the education industry and brainstorms aloud possible solutions to the new challenges the virus presents in terms of how we use physical spaces to educate young people.

In 2013 Chris Senegal received a tip that a slumlord in his hometown of Houston was looking to sell off his portfolio of properties. The houses, which sat in what used to be a prominent African American neighborhood, made up an entire city block.

Chris had flipped a couple of houses, but was ready to do something bigger. He decided to buy the entire portfolio. He didn't have the cash so he worked out a creative financing structure to get the deal done. He was 30.

Fast forward to today. Chris' vision has expanded a great deal, as he is now doing ground-up development, creating 'complete communities', with housing for low income families as well as more upscale homes to draw black professionals back from the suburbs.

Rick Ross rapped about buying up blocks. Chris did that. Jay Z freestyled about gentrifyng your own hood. Chris did that too. He shares how. he did it--step by step. Join us

In this episode, we bring you the audio of a live streamed interview I did with Chris Ball, CEO of Ball Family Farms, a vertically integrated cannabis producer in Los Angeles. The LEGAL sale of cannabis topped $10B last year and is slated to be roughly 10x that amount by the end of the decade. And yet communities that have been most hurt by predatory drug laws are being sidelined, while VC backed startups and large conglomerates rush in. Blacks own less than 5% of cannabis licenses in the US, meaning we are witnessing another large scale syphoning of wealth from this community. This makes it one of the top civil rights issues of our time. We discuss this landscape as well as Chris' remarkable story, going from recording artist, to NFL player to high end drug trafficker to now being one of the success stories of Los Angeles' cannabis social equity program. Join us.

In this episode we visit with builder, developer and serial entrepreneur James Scruggs. James’ real estate companies currently have $40M in construction projects under development. He manages that pipeline as well as the other crown jewel of his business empire, a portfolio of senior care facilities, where he owns the land, the buildings and the business inside 😳. And ALL of this started from a side hustle . Tune in to hear James’ amazing story.

Preview of Episode 5 with James Scruggs